PITTSBURGH — Noah Syndergaard wasn’t as blah as his numbers suggested Friday night, but the rest of the Mets were guilty as charged.
As the Mets lineup continued to exercise its Miranda rights — choosing to remain silent — Syndergaard, in his third major league start, gave the team six respectable innings in a 4-1 loss to the Pirates at PNC Park.
For now, Syndergaard’s spot with the Mets is secure. Before the game, manager Terry Collins outlined a plan in which Dillon Gee would return from the disabled list and give the team a six-man rotation, saving the Mets from having to choose between Gee and Syndergaard for the final spot and allowing the other four starters to receive extra rest.
“Right now [Syndergaard] is not going anywhere,” Collins said. “He is going to go back out there in [six] days and we’ll see how he does.”
Matt Harvey made it clear to Collins he doesn’t like the idea of a six-man rotation, but the manager is looking at the long-term implications.
“The one thing is we’ve got a lot of managing to do of workloads,” Collins said. “And you add Noah to [Jacob] deGrom to Harvey, there is a lot of maneuvering that needs to be done. After I talk to Dillon, we’ll come up with a plan that hopefully works for us all.”
Gee, who missed the past 2½ weeks recovering from a strained right groin, is expected to rejoin the Mets on Saturday. Originally there was thought Gee would be placed in the bullpen.
Collins is unsure how long the Mets can sustain a six-man rotation. Two weeks ago there were concerns Harvey received too much rest between starts because of a scheduling quirk that gave the Mets two days off between the right-hander’s starts.
To get the pitchers enough work in a six-man rotation, Collins suggested they might throw 20-pitch simulated games between starts.
Syndergaard (1-2) was charged for four runs, three of which were earned, on seven hits over six innings, but received no help from a scoring decision in the second inning that awarded Gregory Polanco a single on his grounder off Lucas Duda’s glove instead of giving the first baseman an error. The Pirates subsequently scored two runs that otherwise would have been unearned.
But finding out he would be staying with the Mets was reason enough for Syndergaard to smile.
“I’m glad to stay here, I feel I’ve had some pretty good success here and I’m looking forward to making my next start,” Syndergaard said.
Syndergaard fell into a 4-1 hole in the sixth. Jung Ho Kang delivered an RBI single for the first run and went to second when Syndergaard made a wild throw to first attempting a pickoff. Kang then stole third and scored on Pedro Alvarez’s sacrifice fly.
“Not necessarily the best results I was looking for, but I didn’t feel I had the best velocity on my fastball tonight,” Syndergaard said.
Gerrit Cole (6-2) pitched 8¹/₃ innings and allowed one unearned run on six hits with 10 strikeouts and one walk.
The Mets got an unearned run in the third against Cole to pull within 2-1, when Juan Lagares came racing home on a wild pitch. Lagares had reached on Josh Harrison’s error leading off the inning and Kevin Plawecki’s single advanced him to third.
Syndergaard was close to escaping trouble in the second, but after Polanco’s grounder off Duda’s glove went for an RBI single with two outs, Chris Stewart stroked a run-scoring double to put the Mets in a 2-0 hole.
“That was definitely an error,” Duda said, referring to Polanco’s grounder. “That is a play I should make 10 out of 10 times.”